Anime

[Battlechili]

Been watching Eureka Seven.

Man this show is amazing. First 25 episodes seem to go by a show-don't tell policy mostly, meaning it never really explains to you all the stuff is going on, making the world seem more mysterious and realistic. Instead, the show was just sometimes really fun and other times filled with feels.

Then, after that, it starts explaining things and everything starts to make sense, and the show still keeps its sometimes fun sometimes sad atmosphere. The animation was done by Bones, the same guys who did Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater, and consequently its really smooth and fun to look at.

The romance in the story is nice, and the characters change a lot as the series progresses, mostly for the better. I love it.

The action is nice and altogether this is one of the best shows I"ve seen.

[Dr. Orange]

So I found this new anime in my cleaning for reviews and I found this honest fuck of something that makes 'em fall from the sky.

 

The name is "Girls und Panzer." All you military fanatics already have an idea but to the rest of us... this is a show about girls in their eh... sixteens and up, taking a class on tank warfare (From what I've seen it's actually Blitzkrieg style). 

 

Here's an idea...

 

Now I've seen a few episodes already and I have to say. It's a decent anime with a uncommon plot, funny characters, and tanks. I mean, this is probably a new fetish.

Girls + Tanks = ??? = Profit.

Anyone else see this?

[WOLFjr]

Well, my sister ended up buying D. Greyman on dvd and we ended up watching it over the weekend. I'll be honest, I don't see anything special about it. I don't feel anything for any of the characters, the enemies called Akuma are pretty stupid (I find Hollows from Bleach to be more threatening), though their creation is pretty cruel. I just think D. Greyman is an overhyped, lackluster anime that just bored the hell out of me.

 

Anyways, moving on. What is it High Executor said?:

 

So I found this new anime in my cleaning for reviews and I found this honest fuck of something that makes 'em fall from the sky.

 

The name is "Girls und Panzer." All you military fanatics already have an idea but to the rest of us... this is a show about girls in their eh... sixteens and up, taking a class on tank warfare (From what I've seen it's actually Blitzkrieg style). 

 

Here's an idea...

 

Now I've seen a few episodes already and I have to say. It's a decent anime with a uncommon plot, funny characters, and tanks. I mean, this is probably a new fetish.

Girls + Tanks = ??? = Profit.

Anyone else see this?

Girls?! Tanks?! THE?! I'm looking this anime up! Sounds very interesting!

[Xortberg]

Yeah, I haven't gotten too far in Girls und Panzer, but it's batshit. The reason I started watching it in the first place is this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5IFJqjXiQ

 

10 hour loop of adorable Russian lolis singing a Russian war song or some shit. Yes pls. I had to see the context to go with it, so I started watching XD

 

EDIT BECAUSE I DON'T WANNA DOUBLE POST:

 

In other news, I love how my life is constantly trying to make me eat my own words and make a liar out of me. I spend hours the other week arguing that I hate Eren from Attack on Titan because he's basically a psychopathic, murderous asshole. Then, I decide to read Kara no Kyoukai, where the main character basically describes herself as a psychopathic, murderous asshole - and does her best to act the part throughout the majority of the books - and I end up loving her to death.

 

Granted, the two are very distinct, different types of stories, and they spin the psychopathic murderer angles in two totally different ways, but still. Everything in my life seems to be a constant reminder that anything can be good if it's done well and in the right context.

 

And on the subject of KnK, holy shit I'm falling in love with the Nasuverse so hard right now. I've been eating up anything I can get my hands on that takes place in it. I watched Fate/Stay Night a while back, which takes place in the Verse, but it wasn't until just recently after playing the F/SN visual novel and then finding Tsukihime (the VN, not that abomination that was the Tsukihime anime. There is no Tsukihime anime.) that I started really looking into it that I realized how fucking awesome this universe is. Anyone else a fan of it? I know Sarita and I were talking about Fate/Zero a couple of pages back, but goddamn I need more people to go all fanboy with over this shit.

[Vy'drach]

So I found this new anime in my cleaning for reviews and I found this honest fuck of something that makes 'em fall from the sky.

 

The name is "Girls und Panzer." All you military fanatics already have an idea but to the rest of us... this is a show about girls in their eh... sixteens and up, taking a class on tank warfare (From what I've seen it's actually Blitzkrieg style). 

 

Here's an idea...

 

Now I've seen a few episodes already and I have to say. It's a decent anime with a uncommon plot, funny characters, and tanks. I mean, this is probably a new fetish.

Girls + Tanks = ??? = Profit.

Anyone else see this?

 

 

That image reminds me of when I played World of Tanks with the pony mods installed. Those were glorious times, nothing like fighting in tanks to the tune of the Apple Jack stage theme from Fighting is Magic.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5IFJqjXiQ

 

 

The massive tanker's cap on the one girl is so disproportionately large that all I could think of is that she reminds me of Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls. Her prominent canine tooth doesn't help it much, either, haha.

 

And in the subject of tanks, been looking for a reason to use this gif

 

 

Anyways, recently got around to finishing up Blue Gender, an anime I saw parts of when I was younger but missed some episodes so shit started to make no sense so I stopped watching and didn't get around to it again. 'Tis a good anime, not the best, but will keep you entertained provided you aren't squeamish since from an unbiased stand point I say it's more gory than Elfen Lied, just Elfen Lied would trouble more people given who the violence is directed at usually in the anime, where as in Blue Gender it's directed at giant insect like creatures. Take this screencap, for instance, it's bloody, but for the show I'd rank it on a violence scale of one to ten, a three at the highest.

 

*WARNING* Picture is bloody, just an fyi.

 

Anyways, had a decent story, good characters, and good character development. I can't particularly go into detail with these since it's hard to explain why they're good without ruining things, but I do recommend it if you have some time and want to watch a decent mecha anime. Just keep in mind it can be a bit more sexually graphic than your typical anime. You don't see anyone's junk in the show, but there's some scenes that leave little to the imagination.

[conaly]

Hi,

I couldn't watch more than one episode of Girls and Panzer. This was just toooo crazy for me. I really loved Strike Witches and I actually do like trashy Loli-animes... but Lolis driving tanks for competition while living in a town which is build on a gigantic carrier... DAMN?!?!?!

And whoever wrote that stupid song shall burn in hell... and the voice actors with them for this crappy Russian language. If you get paid for voice acting, then learn how to pronounce foreign words, it can't be this difficult!

[Sarita]

Yeah, I haven't gotten too far in Girls und Panzer, but it's batshit. The reason I started watching it in the first place is this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5IFJqjXiQ

 

10 hour loop of adorable Russian lolis singing a Russian war song or some shit. Yes pls. I had to see the context to go with it, so I started watching XD

 

EDIT BECAUSE I DON'T WANNA DOUBLE POST:

 

In other news, I love how my life is constantly trying to make me eat my own words and make a liar out of me. I spend hours the other week arguing that I hate Eren from Attack on Titan because he's basically a psychopathic, murderous asshole. Then, I decide to read Kara no Kyoukai, where the main character basically describes herself as a psychopathic, murderous asshole - and does her best to act the part throughout the majority of the books - and I end up loving her to death.

 

Granted, the two are very distinct, different types of stories, and they spin the psychopathic murderer angles in two totally different ways, but still. Everything in my life seems to be a constant reminder that anything can be good if it's done well and in the right context.

 

And on the subject of KnK, holy shit I'm falling in love with the Nasuverse so hard right now. I've been eating up anything I can get my hands on that takes place in it. I watched Fate/Stay Night a while back, which takes place in the Verse, but it wasn't until just recently after playing the F/SN visual novel and then finding Tsukihime (the VN, not that abomination that was the Tsukihime anime. There is no Tsukihime anime.) that I started really looking into it that I realized how fucking awesome this universe is. Anyone else a fan of it? I know Sarita and I were talking about Fate/Zero a couple of pages back, but goddamn I need more people to go all fanboy with over this shit.

 

I've been having a hard time getting in to the Fate series. :C After those few episodes I just stopped watching, no idea why, probably to do with the fact I was getting nothing but opening shifts at work and I can't watch anything streaming unless everyone's asleep. Maybe I'll finally go and finish it. I kinda love Saber.

[Xortberg]

Yeah, Saber is great. Pretty much my second favorite character so far in both Fate animes, next to Archer from F/SN. And don't feel bad, I decided to wait until all the dubbed episodes are finished airing to watch any more of Fate/Zero myself XD

 

 

And whoever wrote that stupid song shall burn in hell... and the voice actors with them for this crappy Russian language. If you get paid for voice acting, then learn how to pronounce foreign words, it can't be this difficult!

 

Well, as far as I can tell, nobody who worked on the anime wrote that song. It's actually a Russian song that they decided to put in the show. As for pronouncing the words correctly, is it really that big a deal? These are Japanese folks who've possibly never spoken a word of Russian in their life, and even if they have, it isn't their native language. If you hear English in a lot of subbed anime, it's rarely ever good. Why would Russian be any different?

 

Expecting perfection from this sort of thing is kinda silly, IMO.

 

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyusha_(song)

 

Yeah, it seems to be an actual Russian wartime song. Nobody working on the anime wrote it.

[Vy'drach]

Now all we need is a bunch of Japanese lolis singing "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya" which is an actual Irish anti-war song. At least depending on who you ask it was, there's been some arguments about that.

[Xortberg]

I would pay good money to hear that.

 

I don't even care if I don't have any money.

 

I'll sell a kidney.

[conaly]

Hi,

my bad, I really did not recognize that song from that video. Oh man, that makes it even worse xD

[Battlechili]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR5uoxg8WXA

Casshern Sins is one of the saddest, most beautiful anime I've ever watched.

[WOLFjr]

Started watching an older anime known as Betterman. Though I've only seen the first 5 episodes, I seem to already have a solid opinion about it. That might change after I watch later episodes, but who knows. For me, despite the action, comedy, tension it has, I found it very boring because those very elements I mentioned are constantly clashing with each other. I don't think the anime even knows what kind of anime it wants to be. There are moments where it tries to build some tension, but those moments are often ruined by the main protagonists constant slapstick-style comedy. It also tries to be a giant robot anime, but the mechas featured in this anime are very bland compared to so many other mecha anime. Even the foot soldier mechas that to seem to be in every Gundam anime look for interesting than Betterman's. And don't get me started on the 'flight suits' that are often worn to pilot these things. I would complain about the opening to the anime, but I've been watching the English dub, and it turns out that for the dub, they made the first ending theme the opening theme. Why? I have no idea.

 

 

[Battlechili]

I started watching Elfen Lied for the first time. After 3 episodes, I'm surprised by how much I like this show. Like, woah. 

And conveniently, the show is being rereleased on bluray in September.

 

Also, Lucy is extremely adorable.

[Vy'drach]

I must warn you, be prepared for a rushed ending. But if you like the anime I recommend the manga since it was of course started before the anime, and ended after it, so it had full developmental time. Plus the ending is much better.

[Sarita]

I finally started Attack on Titan. Me gusta, looks like I'll have to start Girls und Panzer, too.

[Xortberg]

I finally started Attack on Titan. Me gusta

 

YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE DX

 

I refuse to believe that AoT is actually good and I'm the only person in the universe with bad taste. It's got to be the other way around.

[Sarita]

Ahaha no I have really shitty taste in entertainment. I liked Twilight.

 

Though I will admit this Battle for Trost thing is dragging on way too long, it's taking up the whole anime.

[Battlechili]

I don't even...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a0g8bwYzMyU

I must warn you, be prepared for a rushed ending. But if you like the anime I recommend the manga since it was of course started before the anime, and ended after it, so it had full developmental time. Plus the ending is much better.

Oh. The manga sounds like it might be nice. I might check it out after I finish this. I've watched 9 episodes so far.

 

 

YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE DX

 

I refuse to believe that AoT is actually good and I'm the only person in the universe with bad taste. It's got to be the other way around.

Nah, you don't have bad taste. Not liking a popular anime doesn't mean you have bad taste.

I didn't like Cowboy Bebop.

Its all right.

[WOLFjr]

I'm on episode 10 of Madoka Magica. It's really getting good. Though I'm at a point where I just hit the pause button and can't make myself click it again. That's always been my problem. I watch a show, but when it gets to a moment that would just be either embarrassing or awkward to watch (i.e. Naruto performing his sexy jutsu in the middle of class in the first episode), I just can't bring myself to watch it. I usually either press the mute button and watch out of the corner of my eye (usually when watching a live show on tv), or just hit the pause button (usually when watching a DVD or internet video).

 

I've also been watching the anime Air Gear. It's a fun anime to watch with a lot of humor and good action. Though I should warn that it's not afraid to show womens' chests uncensored. It's another anime with an invention that I really want to be made real.

[Xortberg]

Episode 10 of Madoka is when they finally drop all the misdirection they had been using and everything in the show just falls into place. It's also got basically the single best performance, in both dub and sub, in the entire series courtesy of Homura, IMO.

 

 

 

Nah, you don't have bad taste. Not liking a popular anime doesn't mean you have bad taste.

I didn't like Cowboy Bebop.

Its all right.

 

Your words of kindness. I feel them. Right here in my heart <3

[Xortberg]

Double posting because it's been a couple of days and such since I last posted anyway and shit

 

Anywho, just finished watching Suisei no Gargantia. It's a pretty good show about shit happening way in the future and shit where some soldier and his cool robot get thrown all the way to the far reaches of the universe via wormhole and end up back on Earth, which people believe to be a myth nowadays, and meets a lot of people who are living relatively primitive lives on a now completely flooded planet. But the reason I'm writing this post isn't because I want to talk about what the show did, exactly. Rather, I wanna kinda-complain about what it didn't do and I really wish it had. I'll be spoilertagging it because I do talk about some shit that comes later in the show, and it's a bit of a wall as well.

 

So basically, the idea is that in this super-distant future, humanity lives in space and is at war with the Hideauze, which are basically super-powerful space octupus with like, bio-tech weapons and shit. During a retreat through a wormhole Ledo, our protagonist, gets separated from the ship and he and his robot end up on Earth where, at around episode 6 or 7, he finds that the Hideauze are also on Earth, though they've adapted to underwater life instead of being in space (read: they're basically giant squid).

 

Now, since these giant squid are super-powerful and people don't have a way of dealing with them despite having to live in big fleets of ships, the Hideauze, which are called whalesquid by the Earthlings, are sort of revered as deities and such. Basically, you aren't supposed to piss off the whalesquid, because if you do they'll attack the fleet and that's a very, very bad thing. Naturally, this means that when Ledo runs across a whalesquid while in his robot, he slaughters it and ends up bringing the attention of an entire army of them to the area.

 

And THIS is where what was, in my opinion, the best moment in the series happened. Ledo, in his super-advanced robot, has nothing to fear from the whalesquid. He can fight them off and, if he gets overwhelmed, his robot can fly and they can't. But the fleet he's a part of, Gargantia, is another story, so there's an extremely tense moment where, knowing that the army of whalesquid are coming their way and having no way to effectively defend themselves, they have to go into a total blackout. No engines, no electricity, nothing at all to disturb the army and possibly get attacked.

 

I don't know how long that moment lasted - at least a minute, no longer than three - but holy shit I was on the edge of my seat. However long it was, it felt like an eternity waiting for the threat to pass. I've long thought that horror stories and the like set in deep water are a sorely underused setting, and any time I see it - even if only for a moment - I wish that there was more of it. Fear is one of the few emotions I don't feel very often in a non-interactive medium like TV, so the fact that this 3-minutes-tops sequence had me so tense had me fucking giddy.

 

And then they leave all of that tension behind to instead focus on the actual plot of the show which, unfortunately, has no need for undersea horror stories. I can't really complain about what I got, since it was an overall solid show, but I'm seriously disappointed in the potential that this world they created had and that we saw for just a moment before having it taken from us.

 

So with all that said, if anyone knows of any good anime that make good use of the ocean and undersea creatures to create threatening suspense like that, PLEASE let me know. I crave more, but I can never find it.

[Vy'drach]

I'm sure there's some Lovecraftian based anime out there that does that. Mononoke also had an awesome story arch in it where the Medicine Seller and some other folks are aboard a ship and must face an Umibozu and all sorts of seafaring demons. My personal favourite being the Umizatou, voiced by Norio Wakamoto. I recommend watching it subbed if for no other reason than the image/voice combination that the Umizatou has in Japanese.

[Xidphel]

Imma just leave this here:

[Xidphel]

KER-DOUBLEPOST!